The Weight of Gold

male announcer: The following is a presentation

of HBO Sports.

- As the novel coronavirus continues to spread worldwide

from its starting point in Wuhan, China...

- 400,000 diagnosed cases of COVID-19 across the globe.

- Another tragic milestone today:

the most reported coronavirus deaths

in a single day...

- Closing almost all businesses...

Shows a record-shattering

6.6 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits...

- More of the world's biggest sporting contests

canceled or postponed.

Tokyo 2020 organizers

and the International Olympic Committee

bowing to global pressure. - The prime minister announced

the 2020 Summer Olympic Games

will be postponed until summer 2021.

- The summer of 2020 was supposed to be the summer

of the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games...

More than 15,000 athletes

from over 200 countries coming together,

all of them eager to realize the dreams

they had chased since they were kids.

The venues were built.

The tickets were sold.

The athletes were ready.

And then...

all of our lives were turned upside down,

and the Olympics were postponed

for the first time ever.

Now, the Games getting delayed pales in comparison

to the tragedies that COVID-19 would cause

all over the world,

but the impact wasn't just on people's physical health.

It was also dangerous for our mental health.

Fear, uncertainty, disruption,

isolation:

all of that was very real for millions of people.

Mental health was something

I had been thinking about a lot

long before the virus hit.

With the 2020 Games approaching,

the first Olympics I wouldn't be a part of

since I was 11 years old,

I found myself looking back on the highs and lows

and how close I came to losing it all.

And then when the Games were postponed,

what I thought about was the mental health

of all the athletes who had worked so hard

and now had to pick up the pieces

with everything changed.

We should've all been watching the Olympics together

in the summer of 2020,

but instead, I'd like to tell you

about our journeys to the dream

and how much more there can be to all of our stories,

there and back.

- You broke more than 25 national age group records.

You got the world championship coming up.

What more do you want to accomplish?

I guess my long-term goal is

to win the gold medal in Athens

and go in more than one event.

So I mean, I have a lot of goals,

but I think that I just want to take it day by day.

When you're an Olympian,

you like to think that your story

is different from all of the others,

but really...

- Put your hands together for Jeremy Bloom!

- They all pretty much start the same.

I want to go to the Olympics

and win a gold medal in skiing.

- My goal is to, like, go to the Olympics,

be on the Olympic team.

- And the goal that I wanted to reach

was to be at the Olympics

and really compete with all the great skaters.

At some point or another,

all of us get this idea in our heads:

we can make it to the Olympics.

A good run!

- And everything just goes from there.

- I'd always watch the Olympics with my parents,

like, "Wow, this is the highest level there is."

That's how my mom explained it to me.

My parents, my mom and my dad, had sat me down.

They're like, "This is-- it doesn't get

"any higher than this.

"This is the Olympics. That's it.

"These athletes have worked their entire lives

"for this moment,

"and that's why they go to the greatest lengths

to try and win."

I just remember being awestruck by that.

- Growing up in a single-parent household

and having the type of energy that I did,

whether you call it ADHD,

you call it, you know, just raw energy

that can't be tapped in any capacity,

the only thing that my dad saw

that could potentially redirect my energy

into something positive was sport,

and he was right.

- Well, I was born and raised in Park City, Utah,

pretty much the Adventure Town, USA.

I started skiing when I was two years old,

which was pretty awesome.

I have pictures of it.

I don't remember my first time skiing,

but winter sports has always been kind of my thing.

- I started skating when I was eight.

We get on the ice,

and I just kind of love it right away.

I didn't perceive myself as being, like,

amazingly talented,

but I was aware that I was better

than, like, some of the other kids,

and it just really rapidly snowballed from there.

- He's called a typical 15-year-old teenager

by his coach, except for one small detail:

Michael Phelps is one of the fastest swimmers

in the world.

- None of us had normal childhoods per se.

26-0-0.

Boy, that first lap is really good.

- Nobody who is going to expend that kind of effort

to achieve that kind of goal

is going to be just like everybody else.

- I certainly think this is just the beginning.

He's certainly not as strong as he's gonna get,

and we have limited his training,

so it's not even near where he's gonna be.

- Now, there are good sides to that,

and there are bad sides to that.

For me, I don't want to say

I would've done anything differently

if I could do it all over again.

I was competitive. I was hungry.

I loved it. I chose it.

But the truth was that my focus

got incredibly narrow and intense really quickly,

which would have ramifications later in life...

- Arms forward. Good, forward.

- Even if it wasn't possible to realize that at the time.

- I don't think that's an excuse

for not learning a skill.

I didn't fucking say it was.

- Go ahead, put that on the movie.

- Go ahead! - Put your attitude

of excellence right on there.

- One... - You think and you operate

as if everything revolves around this sole focus,

and that sole focus is the Olympics.

Everything else is secondary,

so your relationships, your school,

your family, your other friends,

everything that's not catered

to you performing at the highest level in sport,

it's a nonstarter conversation.

13-year-old Sasha Cohen.

- For me, it wasn't a sacrifice.

Everything else in life was an obstacle

that I wanted to push aside.

I didn't want to spend time with friends.

I didn't want to go to school.

I wanted to do everything I could

to be the best skater I could.

- It's more of, like, a lifestyle.

It's how I lived.

Any little step I could take,

anything to get the edge or advantage

over my competitors and to win.

My world was based on that for sure.

- I went five or six years straight,

365 days a year.

The difference between great and good:

I think the greats do things when they don't always want to,

and I think that's what makes them great.

I looked up to Jordan forever.

That guy probably didn't want to play basketball every day.

He's the GOAT.

Peyton, he didn't have to study film

for thousands and thousands of hours.

He did it because he wanted to be great.

- Up! Good.

- When I graduated high school, I remember working out

like crazy

because I wanted to be an athlete.

Everyone's like, "Oh, my gosh, you work out so much,"

and I was like, "It's nothing compared to the Olympians."

When I first got into skeleton,

I ended up on my own at 16,

being offered a free place to live, food,

and a potential scholarship

for whatever school I could try to get to.

Was not really a hard choice--

go to the Olympics or go to college--

and I basically chose sport over academics.